Travel down the highways and bye-ways of Commonwealth stamp collecting for news and views about Commonwealth stamps.

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Dominica AIDS Stamp and Tanzania Issues Made Clear.

Following on from the previous blog, I illustrate another stamp issued in 2011 to note the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS and HIV. This excellent stamp from Dominica which features two of the rare local bird, the sisserou parrot, which is the national bird and which appears on the national coat of arms, is designed to have local relevance and even includes the number of a local AIDS telephone information line. Dominica has greatly cut back on the number of stamp issues it is producing in the period of the last 18 months and the New York philatelic agents which Dominica has used for years do not seem to mention its new issues on its website. Certainly, Dominica has not produced an Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe stamps for a while - perhaps the little country has severed its contract with the company. Meanwhile Tanzania, another country which uses the same agents but not only allows stamps of no relevance to the country to be produced by those agents but also, separately, produces stamps often by local designers and with local themes, has set up a website offering issues of the last few years for sale and has finally clarified what issues have been made from 2004 to 2011.

I list here the issues of recent years which are identified on that site although I have not bothered to include those items produced by the philatelic agents on New York which have no relevance to Tanzania.

The programme for 2012 is:- 15 February: Material culture, 26 April: Zanzaibar attractions (II), 30 July: Birds of Tanzania and 15 October: the Tanzania Colobus monkey (the last 2 issues are described as "philatelic issues", whatever that may mean - time will tell I suppose. Finally, there is some puzzlement on the Stampboards website at present about some Tanzanian stamps which are appearing fairly regularly which seem to commemorate the 1994 Football World Cup and which seemed to have been used on ordinary post around that time.

The stamps seem to have the appearance of locally designed stamps of that period but are notable for excruciating spelling mistakes on them. Up until recently, I have never seen anyone write about them and they are not listed in the standard catalogues. As I've shown in a recent blog, there is a lot that is not known about Tanzanian stamps of recent years and I think these stamps are almost certainly genuine but up until now, have just passed under the radar. It would be excellent if anyone who knows the definitive facts about these items would make a comment.